I was born in Oslo. My father was English; he was a Secret Service agent
in the first war, and he met my mother in Stockholm. Then he had to scram
out of the country in twenty-four hours. He thought it wasnt so
good to go as far as England; so he only went to Oslo, and my mother was
able to join him there later. They remained there. My mother came from
a family that was very involved in the theatre and the musical world.
And it so happened that my father owned a cornet, which was given him
by '>his fatherI started playing that when I was about nine
years old. It was given to me when I was ten, and Ive been playing
ever since.

With my fathers nationality, we always listened to Britain on the
wireless, and heard all those old dance bands, which were really good
at that timebands like Lew Stone. And he brought home the first
jazz recordswhich were Ellington and Armstrong. Thats the
way I was introduced to jazz. I started listening to these records; after
a bit, Id try to sort of emulate their playing. I had my first professional
jobs, in small combos, when I was sixteen.

The first out-of-the-ordinary job for me was the Paris Jazz Festivalin
1949, I thinkwhere I played with an All-Star Trumpets session, which
had in it Miles Davis, Bill Coleman, Jimmy McPartland and a Frenchman,
Aime Barelli. But they also had a Swedish All-Stars band there, which
made quite an impression on everybody. And it so happened that the trumpeter
with this Swedish band was knocked down at the bar the first day; so they
rang me, asked me to jump into his place. That made it quite different;
I did a lot of playing at the Festival, instead of only the all-trumpet
things.

And that was the first time I met Charlie Parker in personhe was
at this Festival. Its a bit of a funny story. I met a Norwegian,
and he said: Have you been down to the Club St. Germain Des Pres?
You must gothey play exactly the style you play. So I got
the address, and I went down at about nine oclock and looked for
the placeI couldnt find it. I went into a bar, sat down, had
a drink and I asked the waiter where it was. Oh, its right
across the street, but they dont open until ten oclock.
I hadnt found this small door, because they had a sign they hung
out at ten, so you could find the place. This was a real hangout for musicians.
There was a very good tenor player there, called Fohrenbach, who was very
much in the Coleman Hawkins trend.

The combo, in fact, was a very conservative one, playing in the kind
of Swing style that had been at its peak from about 1938 to 1940. When
I came up and spoke to them, they tried to give the impression that they
didnt speak Englishthey thought I was a bopper, I believe,
and they didnt want me to play. They carried on playing, and after
a bit I thought: Well, this is exactly my kind of styleso
I wont askI just took my trumpet out of the bag and
started playing. Then they suddenly started speaking English!

We kept on playing, and, after the time that the concerts would have
ended, down the staircase came Charlie Parker, with a French girl carrying
his saxophone case. And he seemed to be amused by this playing; he was
sitting there, laughing. I more or less wanted to lay off when they came
down, as I thought perhaps he was wanting to play, but he said: No
you carry on. This is great. Go on. I kept playing for a while;
then I put my horn away again, just about when Miles Davis came into the
joint. They started playing, and Parker said: Get your horn.
I said: No, no. Yeahget your horn, man.
And he insisted so much, that I had to pick up my horn and play with them.

But the thing is, Parker and Miles didnt play bebopon the
contrary. The French rhythm section continued playing in the 1940 style;
so they just had to adapt to it. They did it perfectly, and they were
'>wailing on their horns. Parker seemed to be enjoying himself
tremendously. They never asked anybody to play any different on
the drums or anything. Which goes to show.

So that was my first meeting with Parker. And later on, I had a Norwegian
band, playing at this huge place in Copenhagen, called the KB Hall. Charlie
Parker was there with Roy Eldridge, whom Id met earlier, when he
was with Benny Goodman. My band had a lucky strike in therewe more
or less brought the house downmyself, a tenor player, piano, bass
and drums.

It so happened that Parker was going on tour in Sweden for a week. and
those Swedish guys asked me if I would come and do this tour with them.
Which I was able to do. And being the best speaker of English, naturally,
of the whole band, I got in touch with Parker a good deal during this
time.

On the first day there, we had a terrific all-night session in a place called
Linkoping; this was after wed played a show, with the usual two sets.
With us was the marvellous Swedish musician Arne Domnerusabsolutely
the top, as far as alto players go. It was only when Parker was feeling
at his best that he could really tackle him. Of course, Parker had this
black thing going, you know which '>is differentbut he wasnt
so good that he could surpass Domnerus when he was off form.

Anyway, this session went on till about six oclock in the morning;
it started off with this smorgasbord, which the Swedes haveall fish,
done in different ways. Parker was really on top formhe loved this
food, the Swedish booze and everything. So, after six, we got back to
the hotel, everybody went to bed, and he didnt ask when we were
leaving the next day. But the train was leaving at eleven oclock.
At a quarter past ten, I had a call to my room, saying that theyd
tried to waken Parker up, but they couldnt get a reply from him.
Can you try? They knew Id been speaking to him all the
time.

I went to his door, started banging; I listened carefully, and I could
hear him snoring inside. I banged harder, kept on banging, and suddenly
he woke up; Whats the matter? I said: The trains
leaving. What train? We have to leave, to play
in another town. But not as early as this! Ive hardly
fallen asleep . . . All rightcome inside. Lets have a drink.
This is at about ten in the morning.

He brought out this bottle of Danish Aquavitwhich is hair-raising
stuff. He asked me if I wanted some, and I didnt just then, but
he had a terrific sip; This is really good, you know. Its
the best booze Ive had. I helped him pack his bag, and we
went off to the station.

We all got on board the eleven oclock train. Hed got up so late,
he hadnt had time to have any breakfast: so he said to the whole band:
Will you come and keep me company while I have breakfast? Everyone
else had been up and had theirs. He came into this dining compartment, and
he said: Well, lets count now . .. six of us. And to the
waiter: Lets have six glasses of wine. That was his first
order! Nobody wanted wine, but I thought Id keep him company; so I
took one glass. He had an enormous Swedish breakfast, with eggs, bacon,
bread and everythingand he finished five glasses of wine. After that,
he said: Now I feel real good. Absolutely crazy. We went and
sat down in his compartment; he had a lot of fan-mail hed received,
and he sat reading those aloudgrinning and laughing at them all the
time. He was quite a character.

By the time we got to the place where we were due to play the next session,
he was so tiredhe was absolutely finished. In the dressing-room,
before the first set, he said to me; Rowlandhow do we get some booze?
I told him: Its just about impossible in '>this place.
Because this was one of the dance-halls they had in Sweden, run by the
State; as they had very young people coming in they did not permit alcohol
to served.

I said: No, its hopeless. But perhaps we can get it
from the hotel. Ill phone and ask. So I was explaining to
this head waiter Were at this place, we have Charlie Parker
with us, and he wants a bottle of something to drink. He said Charlie
Parker? Is that right? Ill bring him a drink, but can I have an
autograph? I called out to Parker: He wants an autograph.Ah
he can have hundreds!

Parker lit a cigarette, laid down on the sofa, and fell asleep. We took
the cigarette away; then very soon we had to wake him up, as it was time
to go in and play. Now, on that session Parker was feeling so bad Domnerus
played him absolutely upside-down. Domnerus was so good that it only needed
Parker to slip one millimetre for Domnerus to be better. The first set
was no contest.

After the session, Parker got on the bed, fell asleep immediately; he
slept for about half-an-hour. In the meantime, the waiter came along in
a taxi with this booze, and I paid him. Then I woke Parker up, and I said:
Well, theres another show to doand I showed him
this booze. Manyou fixed it! But hes waiting
for the autographs. Surejust tell me how many he wants.
So he signed his name on three or four photos; the waiter went off, very
happy. Parker asked me if I wanted a drink; I said No, thanks,
and he put it to mouth, emptied half the bottle in one go. He sat there
just looking straight ahead, and he said: Now Im feeling good.

He got his saxophone, we went onstage, and he played simply terrifically
on that session. It just shows. If Id done the same thing, I think
it would have been impossible to play at all. When you wake up after having
had very little sleep, more often than not you feel really terrible.
He was the oppositehe played like crazy. But he kept talking all
the time about drugs. He told me: Never touch drugs. Booze is all
right, if youre careful, and if you '>eat enough. I eat a lot, all
the time. But drugstaboo!

Very few people know who his favourite jazz player was. One time, when
we were sitting alone, I asked him: Have you got any favourite?
He said: Yeswithout doubt. Chu Berry. Theres never been
a player like him. And another thinghe was always carrying
this LP record around with him, and I was dying to know what it was. Finally,
I had to say: Im so curious. What is this record? He
said: Man, its my favourite musician of '>all. And he
showed meJascha Heifetz.

As far as I could see, Parkers whole outlook was music. Certainly,
he had a special style. But, in my opinion, there have been other people
who have been just as great as Parkerfor instance, Art Tatum. Wed
come to a time, you know, when jazz had much more publicity; it was behind
Dizzy Gillespie and Parker to a far greater extent than it was ever behind
Roy Eldridge and Hawkins. The earlier ones didnt have the long-playing
recordsand that makes a '>lot of difference. In Parkers time,
the LP became the important medium, but all the terrific players we had
before, like Lester Young, missed out on this.

Today, nearly all the jazz musicians you hear are playing phrases by
Parker or Gillespie. Which I think is a terrible thing. They had their
own style, and every other player has to try to find his own style, somehowotherwise
jazz is finished. No, I definitely dont regard Parker and Gillespie
as founders of a whole new modern movement. In classical music, all this
has been done ages ago; Ravel and Debussy played all these chords, and
more, a long time before they were played by any jazz musicians. It comes
entirely from that publicity angle. You could say just as much that Lester
was a complete new change in jazz, and that Eldridge was, but they just
werent publicised in that way.

Then again, if you look at the scene today, having said that Gillespie
and Parker were the start of modern jazzcompared to Archie Shepp,
theyre not modern. So where are we? In another ten years, youll
have another style, and compared to that, Archie Shepp wont be modern.
So I think all that is baloney. Its got nothing to do with jazz
and music at all; its only a gimmick. There are ways of playing,
thats all.

Take the piano playing scenewhich is always interesting, because
at the piano you have all the harmonies together with the phrasing and
everything. If you go back to the early forties, everybody agrees
that we had five giants on the piano, each with their own styleArt
Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Mel Powell, Nat Cole and Fats Waller. But you dont
find that quality in one piano player todayeven taking the very
top into consideration. When you go to an Oscar Peterson concert, you
hear him incorporating some Tatum stuffand that, to me, is a silly
thing to do. Because then you hear the difference. This is not putting
Peterson down, because hes a terrific piano playerbut if you
compare him to Tatum, then you have to start raising question marks. Its
the same if you compare him to Teddy Wilson at his peak.

I think that Teddy Wilsons playing round about 1935 to 1945 was
tremendous musically and rhythmically, in the jazz idiomif we say
that Armstrong was the basis of the idiom.. Then you can say that, if
Armstrong; is jazz, a lot of the other stuff cant be jazzand
vice versa. Teddy Wilsons best playing is in the same idiom as Armstrong;
so is Eldridge, Chu Berryand even Parker.

About ten or fifteen years ago, it was the general opinion that it didnt
matter as long as they played jazz, and as long as you got the thing swinging.
But thats not the case, and theyre finding out more and more
that one style is totally different to the other. Its got a completely
different feeling, and completely different people playing itthough
it may be just as good as the next style. So nowadays you have this thing
going with four, five or six contrasting styles of jazz. I mean, you can
never say that Dizzv Gillespies better than Bobby Hackettdifferent,
yes, but not better. Yet you get some people calling so-and-so the
worlds best. Theres no such thingits a matter
of style. A person whos really sold on Gillespie wont be sold
on Hackett. I knew Armstrong personally, and I know that he would think
that Bobby Hackett was a much finer jazz trumpet player than Dizzybecause
that was the way he felt. Yes, it was closer to his musical language.